10/07/2023
Après une longue absence, je vais reprendre cette page.
Un texte qui m’a inspiré ce soir : traduction personnelle en français, donc soyez indulgent !
Puis texte original en anglais.
Il a été écrit par le chef Dan George en 1972.
« Au cours de ma vie, j’ai vécu dans deux cultures distinctes.
Je suis né dans une culture qui vivait dans des maisons communautaires. La maison de mon grand-père mesurait 80 pieds. On l’appelait fumoir, et elle se trouvait près de la plage, le long de l’anse. Tous les fils de mon grand-père et leurs familles vivaient dans cette maison.
Leurs appartements de couchage étaient séparés par des couvertures faites de mauvaises herbes, mais un feu ouvert au milieu servait les besoins de cuisine de tous.
Dans des maisons comme celles-ci, dans toute la tribu, les gens ont appris à vivre ensemble, à respecter les droits des autres. Les enfants partageaient les pensées du monde adulte et se trouvaient entourés de tantes, d’oncles et de cousins qui les aimaient et ne les menaçaient pas. Mon père est né dans une telle maison et a appris dès l’enfance comment aimer les gens et être à la maison avec eux.
Et au-delà de cette acceptation mutuelle, il y avait un profond respect pour tout ce qui les entourait dans la Nature.
Mon père aimait la Terre et toutes ses créatures. La Terre était sa deuxième mère. La Terre et tout ce qu’elle contenait était un don de See-see-am… et la façon de remercier ce Grand Esprit était d’utiliser ses dons avec respect.
Quand j’étais petit, je pêchais avec lui sur Indian River et je le vois encore au lever du soleil au-dessus du sommet de la montagne au petit matin… Je le vois debout au bord de l’eau, les bras levés au-dessus de la tête, tandis qu’il gémissait doucement… » Merci, merci. » Cela a profondément marqué mon jeune esprit.
Et je n’oublierai jamais sa déception lorsqu’il m’a attrapé en train de pêcher un poisson « juste pour le plaisir ». « Mon fils, dit-il, le Grand Esprit t’a donné ces poissons pour être tes frères, pour te nourrir quand tu as faim. Tu dois les respecter et ne pas les tuer juste pour le plaisir !
This was written by Chief Dan George, in 1972..
"In the course of my lifetime I have lived in two distinct cultures. I was born into a culture that lived in communal houses. My grandfather’s house was eighty feet long. It was called a smoke house, and it stood down by the beach along the inlet. All my grandfather’s sons and their families lived in this dwelling. Their sleeping apartments were separated by blankets made of bull rush weeds, but one open fire in the middle served the cooking needs of all.
In houses like these, throughout the tribe, people learned to live with one another; learned to respect the rights of one another. And children shared the thoughts of the adult world and found themselves surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins who loved them and did not threaten them. My father was born in such a house and learned from infancy how to love people and be at home with them.
And beyond this acceptance of one another there was a deep respect for everything in Nature that surrounded them. My father loved the Earth and all its creatures. The Earth was his second mother. The Earth and everything it contained was a gift from See-see-am… and the way to thank this Great Spirit was to use his gifts with respect.
I remember, as a little boy, fishing with him up Indian River and I can still see him as the sun rose above the mountain top in the early morning…I can see him standing by the water’s edge with his arms raised above his head while he softly moaned…”Thank you, thank you.” It left a deep impression on my young mind.
And I shall never forget his disappointment when once he caught me gaffing for fish “just for the fun of it.” “My son” he said, “The Great Spirit gave you those fish to be your brothers, to feed you when you are hungry. You must respect them. You must not kill them just for the fun of it.”
This then was the culture I was born into and for some years the only one I really knew or tasted. This is why I find it hard to accept many of the things I see around me.
I see people living in smoke houses hundreds of times bigger than the one I knew. But the people in one apartment do not even know the people in the next and care less about them.
It is also difficult for me to understand the deep hate that exists among people. It is hard to understand a culture that justifies the killing of millions in past wars, and it at this very moment preparing bombs to kill even greater numbers. It is hard for me to understand a culture that spends more on wars and weapons to kill, than it does on education and welfare to help and develop.
It is hard for me to understand a culture that not only hates and fights his brothers but even attacks Nature and abuses her. I see my white brothers going about blotting out Nature from his cities. I see him strip the hills bare, leaving ugly wounds on the face of mountains. I see him tearing things from the bosom of Mother Earth as though she were a monster, who refused to share her treasures with him. I see him throw poison in the waters, indifferent to the life he kills there; as he chokes the air with deadly fumes.
My white brother does many things well for he is more clever than my people but I wonder if he has ever really learned to love at all. Perhaps he only loves the things that are his own but never learned to love the things that are outside and beyond him. And this is, of course, not love at all, for man must love all creation or he will love none of it. Man must love fully or he will become the lowest of the animals. It is the power to love that makes him the greatest of them all… for he alone of all animals is capable of [a deeper] love.
My friends, how desperately do we need to be loved and to love. When Christ said man does not live by bread alone, he spoke of a hunger. This hunger was not the hunger of the body.. He spoke of a hunger that begins in the very depths of man... a hunger for love. Love is something you and I must have. We must have it because our spirit feeds upon it. We must have it because without it we become weak and faint. Without love our self esteem weakens. Without it our courage fails. Without love we can no longer look out confidently at the world. Instead we turn inwardly and begin to feed upon our own personalities and little by little we destroy ourselves.
You and I need the strength and joy that comes from knowing that we are loved. With it we are creative. With it we march tirelessly. With it, and with it alone, we are able to sacrifice for others. There have been times when we all wanted so desperately to feel a reassuring hand upon us… there have been lonely times when we so wanted a strong arm around us… I cannot tell you how deeply I miss my wife’s presence when I return from a trip. Her love was my greatest joy, my strength, my greatest blessing.
I am afraid my culture has little to offer yours. But my culture did prize friendship and companionship. It did not look on privacy as a thing to be clung to, for privacy builds walls and walls promote distrust. My culture lived in big family communities, and from infancy people learned to live with others.
My culture did not prize the hoarding of private possessions, in fact, to hoard was a shameful thing to do among my people. The Indian looked on all things in Nature as belonging to him and he expected to share them with others and to take only what he needed.
Everyone likes to give as well as receive. No one wishes only to receive all the time. We have taken something from your culture… I wish you had taken something from our culture, for there were some beautiful and good things in it.
Soon it will be too late to know my culture, for integration is upon us and soon we will have no values but yours. Already many of our young people have forgotten the old ways. And many have been shamed of their Indian ways by scorn and ridicule. My culture is like a wounded deer that has crawled away into the forest to bleed and die alone.
The only thing that can truly help us is genuine love. You must truly love, be patient with us and share with us. And we must love you—with a genuine love that forgives and forgets… a love that forgives the terrible sufferings your culture brought ours when it swept over us like a wave crashing along a beach… with a love that forgets and lifts up its head and sees in your eyes an answering love of trust and acceptance..."
~Chief Dan George was a leader of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation as well as a beloved actor, musician, poet and author. He was born in North Vancouver in 1899 and died in 1981. This column first appeared in the North Shore Free Press on March 1, 1972.
Chief Dan George was a leader of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation as well as a beloved actor, musician, poet and author. He was born in North Vancouver in 1899 and died in 1981.
